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Topic: Flight crew assignments (Read 1162323 times)

Does any one know about flight crew assignments beyond STS-115? There must have been a lot of shuffling lately. I guess the original pre-Columbia assigments up to STS-120 are no longer valid -- or are they?

Interesting, but I've found no official references to Melroy or Caldwell's assignments to STS-119. Unless I've missed something, there's nothing on either of their bios which refers to STS-119, nor any recent NASA press releases.

I also heard some time ago that Halsell, like Wilcutt, had chosen to step down from their pre-107 commands to give others a chance to fly. Also, I understand that Ken Bowersox (the Director of Flight Crew Ops) made an announcement a couple of months ago that more-or-less says four flights is the limit. Wilcutt, Parazynski and Gernhardt have already made four and Halsell has five under his belt.

A link, or press release, for the Melroy-Caldwell-Halsell assignments would be much appreciated, as would any comments about the others. Can anyone help?

I heard recently that Dan Tani may no longer be in the running for Expedition 13. Can anyone verify or counter this?

If Tani is to be dropped, will the 'prime' Russian on Expedition 13 (Vinogradov? or Kondratiev?) be kept with another US astronaut, or swapped for the entire Expedition 12 backup crew of Mikhail Tyurin and Jeff Williams?

The Commander/Pilot positions have always (I believe) been limited to military pilots, and they've all been through test pilot training at some point during their military careers. I think the test pilot training is the main factor - you just don't get that type of training and experience with a commercial pilot background.

The part of this information is official... It was confirmed at session of Multilateral Crew Operations Panel (MCOP) on September 20, 2005 and published in Russian "Novosti kosmonavtiki" magazine (November 2005)... Other part of this information I have received from informal sources...

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Ben E - 5/11/2005 4:34 PM

Has anything leaked out as to why Tani was dropped?

I heard that he had problems with studying of Russian language, but it may be a mistake...

Seems a bit late in the day, after having trained as a prime and backup ISS crewmember AND flown a Shuttle-ISS mission, to have only just realised, with five months to go, that his language or Soyuz proficiency aren't up to scratch.

If it's true, it's almost as ludicrous as the Parazynski-Lawrence "too tall-too short" thing from 1997.